


This Year Has Let Me Borrow Tomorrow

by checkerbored



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-03-09
Packaged: 2017-11-26 10:50:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/checkerbored/pseuds/checkerbored
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Quinn works at a fair during the summer, and it's the only thing that she has to distract her from having to deal with the pressure of college. Then she runs into Rachel. Literally. Faberry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the road was shorter than it looked

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Don't own glee, never will, etc. etc.
> 
> A/N: Also, a lot of the places/events/etc. are fictionalized, so don't like, accept it as fact.

She only has three months until she has to start thinking about college, and that kind of scares the shit out of her.

Because, yeah, she lives in New York, and there's obviously plenty of options, and she's pretty sure that her parents would support her in whatever the hell she wanted to do, whether it was going to law school like her dad did or going to Australia to become a fucking dolphin trainer.

Her parents are awesome like that, and while most of the time she appreciates their laid-back,  _mistakes are only mistakes if you don't learn something from them_  attitude, she wished they'd be a little more strict on some things, like college, and life, and everything that's going to come after this last summer of her being a "child".

She's worked at the fair every summer since she was sixteen, so it's obviously not that unusual of an occurrence for her, but if her parents can't see or aren't concerned that one of the main reasons she asked for a job again this year was so she didn't have to think about what she was going to do with her life come mid-August, then they're a lot more purposely uninvolved than she originally thought they were.

She's on break right now, and the little employee lounge thing that they have is actually really cool; a couch and some bean bags, a flat screen TV and some surprisingly really fantastic wifi.

"Dude," she hears Mike say, who's frowning down at his DS. "You cheated."

"Did not." Sam replies, offended, stylus clutched tightly between his fingers. "You're just mad that Cyndaquil is  _obviously_ superior to Totodile – "

"You're not allowed to nerd-out around me." Santana yells from the yellow bean bag that she's sharing with Brittany. "I'm making that a rule."

Sam sighs and Mike frowns, but they both return to their game after Mike whispers, "Rematch," and Sam replies, "Alright."

...

Quinn's first impression of Santana was  _crazy bitch._

Her impression of Santana  _now_  is still  _crazy bitch_ , but the tone that her mind says it in is warmer than before.

The first week or so, Santana was openly struggling, and while Quinn had laughed about it a little bit, by the fourth day it was just a little...sad.

And even though Quinn knew next to nothing about concessions, she tried to help out, anyway, if only so Santana wasn't making a fool of herself alone.

That was the start of a good friendship. One where they called each other  _bitch_ and spent most of their time bickering over stupid, tiny, unimportant things, yeah, but a friendship, nonetheless.

It still is a friendship, really, but Brittany was hired about five weeks after Santana and though for a while there it was all three of them hanging out and having lunch together and watching TV in the break room, after about a month it was really clear that it wasn't quite  _Brittany and Santana and Quinn_ , but more,  _Brittany and Santana. And oh, hey, Quinn, too._

It doesn't bother her, though. Not really, because she has Kurt (who's basically a male Santana, despite being a little less bitchy and a lot more fashion conscientious) and Mike and Sam.

"Quinn, yo," someone says, and she looks over the back of the couch to Sam, who's biting his lip and staring intently down at his DS. "Um. Would you do me a favor and go grab me some...uh – goddamn, Chang, no fair – some nachos?"

She almost considers saying  _no,_  but then takes a look at the TV and then her watch and realizes that she really would rather not spend the rest of her break watching  _Jersey Shore_ and trying not to say anything that might offend Kurt, who looks completely immersed.

"I'll pay." He tacks on a second later and then fishes his wallet out of the pocket of his cargo shorts. He does it without looking away from the screen once, and Quinn is admittedly a little impressed.

...

The fair is busy, and Quinn frowns at herself for feeling a little irritation by it because really, what did she expect? It's early June, the weather is crazy nice for it being 7:13 in the evening and admission is only seven bucks.

Her feet subconsciously take her to the nearest concession stand with nachos on their menu, and she gets in line behind a guy and his kid. The little boy is wailing "I WANT A SNO CONE!" at the top of his lungs, and the dad looks like he wants to pull his graying hair out and slam his face against the pavement.

Quinn smiles in sympathy, although the guy can't see it, and mentally adds this event to the list in her head entitled _Why Quinn Fabray Will Probably Never Have Children._

She smiles up at the older guy maning the ordering window and then fumbles with Sam's wallet when it comes time to pay. It's worn-out brown leather, and it's slim, which she guesses is partly due to the shortage of bills in it.

Pulling out the only bill, a five, she hands it to the man and tucks the wallet into her pocket before accepting the change and the box of nachos with a smile and a nod.

On her way back she looks down at the food in her hands and sighs, "Goddammit." Sam likes jalapenos, she's pretty sure (she vaguely recalls him once saying, "Dude, nachos aren't truly nachos if there's no jalapenos"), and when she turns to start heading back to the concessions, something hits her elbow, and she jerks away, effectively spilling cheese and tortilla chips all down the front of her.

"Fuck," she mutters, unable to do anything at the moment besides just stare at the mess.

"Oh my god," a feminine voice says next to her. "Oh my god, are you alright?"

"I probably just ruined this shirt, but other than that – well."

"You – right. Right. I – oh my god, I'm so sorry, here, hold on – "

And then there's a hand pressing napkins onto her shirt and trying to mop away the cheese while she licks what she can off her fingers and forearm.

She laughs, "Here – I think you might be making it, um, worse, so," and then takes the napkins from the girl and crumples them before squashing them into the nacho tray, which now sadly only contains one chip and a small blob of cheese.

"Shit," she says when she looks down at her shirt, because it's going to be hell to get the staining out and because she's just realized that she's going to have to go through the rest of the night looking like a slob that never washes her uniform.

And then she curses again, because she's pretty sure that she just wasted about three dollars that weren't hers.

"I – hi." She says, and looks up, catching the eye of the girl that's eying the yellow mess on her shirt with a slight wince.

"Hi."

Quinn senses the beginnings of an awkward silence, because neither of them are giving any indications that they will be moving along any time soon, so she says, "I'm Quinn," but doesn't offer her hand, because she's pretty sure the brunette wouldn't appreciate the mixture of cheese and saliva coating her fingers.

"Rachel Berry," she replies, and Quinn smiles.

"Nice to meet you," she says. "And I would shake your hand but um. Yeah."

"Of course," Rachel replies, and then moves to take the small tray out of Quinn's hand. "I'll throw this away for you, it's the least I could do."

"Okay. Thank you," Quinn says. "I should probably – "

"No, no, hold on." Rachel jogs to the closets trash can, which is about fifty feet away, and then jogs back. "Let me – I'll buy you some more nachos, it's – I'm sure you were looking forward to eating them."

Rachel seems a little out of sorts, but Quinn is sure she would be flustered too, if she just spilled someone's food all over them.

But then again, she also doesn't know Rachel Berry well, or at all, really, so she could very well act like this on a regular basis.

Quinn laughs lightly. "Well, um. They weren't for me, but..."

She doesn't know how to say, "Yeah, that'd be awesome if you could buy me some more food, seeing as it is kind of your fault that its currently all down my front."

"That'd actually be...much appreciated," she says. "And...uh. Could you get jalapenos, please?" She feels like a child asking their mother for a toy.

"Of course." Rachel nods, and then points to a nearby bench. "Could you – would you sit over there so I don't, um, lose you when I come back?"

Quinn nods, and Rachel nods back and smiles slightly before she says, "Okay. Hold on like, three minutes," and stalks off towards a concession stand while Quinn turns the opposite way and heads toward the bench.

She could easily take off back to the employee lounge and tell Sam that she got the last order of nachos and then dropped it all over herself and that she's really sorry, and she kind of wants to, because this has never happened to her and she doesn't really know how to deal with it.

But the polite part in her wins out, and she waits patiently on the bench, picking at the hardened substance clinging to the material of her shirt.

She suddenly feels uncomfortable, and she can feel people staring at her a little too long as they pass by. She watches a group of teenagers maybe a few years younger than her point and then laugh before dipping their spoons in their ice cream and walking off in the direction of the Ferris wheel.

Her knee starts bouncing up and down, and she wills herself to stop, because it probably seems like she's getting impatient. She's not. She's just getting restless, and the combined anxiety of waiting for Rachel to come back with nachos for Sam and the feeling she can't seem to shake that everyone seems to watching her, isn't really doing that much good for her slight (okay, more than slight) claustrophobia.

"Hi, hey, sorry for taking so long," Rachel says, and Quinn stands up jerkily to meet her. "It was – the line was kind of long, and then the cheese machine stopped working for a second, and – "

"Hey, whoa. It's fine," she says, and then takes the food when Rachel nods and hands it out to her. "I – um. Thank you. Not for – for spilling food on me, obviously, but for buying this." She almost adds,  _I'll pay you back,_ but then realizes how horrible that would sound, considering both her and Rachel know that there's about a seventy percent chance they will never see each other again. "And you should, um, try and ride that spaceship thing, if you've got time. It's my favorite. Gets a little messy when someone pukes, though."

Rachel scrunches up her nose at this, and Quinn grins, hoping to reassure Rachel that she's  _half_ kidding. "It was nice meeting you," Quinn says, and she does mean it, despite the soiled state of her clothing.

Rachel smiles lightly, "You too," and then waves slightly before she turns on the heels of her flip flops (in the direction of the space ship ride, Quinn notes with accomplishment).

...

"Took you long eno – um, why does it look like a giant cheese monster took a crap on your shirt?" Sam reaches up for his nachos and Quinn drops his wallet onto his lap. "Thanks. But no, hey, really."

Santana looks up from the exact same position that Quinn left her in and snorts, clapping sarcastically. "Nice one, Fabray. You trip over your shoelace or something?"

"No," she sighs and then falls into the couch next to Kurt, who is also exactly where she left him, except instead of  _Jersey Shore_ on the TV, it's  _True Life._

He glances at her, and then does a double take. "Oh my god," he says, wide eyes glued to her shirt, like the sight of it has somehow personally offended him. "What circle of hell did  _you_ fall into? Do you know how  _hard_ it is to get  _nacho cheese_  out of  _clothes_?"

"I – I didn't," she says, blinking at him. "But...now I do?"

He shakes his head, then goes back to his TV.

"No, but Quinn, really," Brittany wonders. "Did you trip over those cords that they use to power the rides? 'Cause I do that a lot, too."

"No," Quinn shakes her head and laughs, because Brittany's telling the truth, and Quinn has witnessed a lot of those instances. "Rachel bumped into me."

"Are we supposed to know who that is?" Mike asks.

"Not really. I – well, I don't even know who she is, really, besides the girl that created this gigantic stain and bought me – well, Sam – another plate of nachos."

"Oh," Sam says, rubbing some cheese off the corner of his mouth before wiping it on his shorts. "So, should I have thanked her, then?"

Quinn shrugs. "I guess. I don't know. Probably."

"Okay, well; thank you, Rachel," he says, saluting the sky. He picks up his DS, and then Santana drops her phone in her lap and groans.

"You sound like a cow," Kurt says absently, then chuckles a little.

"Yeah, kind of," Mike says. "What are you mooing about?"

"Our break's over in fucking seven minutes," Santana says.

There's a small silence, and then they all let out little mooing sounds of their own.

...

Running the  _knock the three bottles down with on softball_ stand wasn't really what she had in mind when she'd first had the idea to start working over here during the summers (and admittedly, she's a little jealous that Kurt gets to work the Tower of Doom even though she's been here a year longer), but for the $12.50 that she's getting per hour, she'd scrape the dried-up gum off the undersides of tables if they asked her to.

A little boy winds up and throws his last softball while his parents stand off to the side, talking quietly.

"Sorry," Quinn says, and smiles down at him. "Better luck next time."

He shrugs, and then walks over to his parents who pat him on his head and then lead him to other (more exciting, Quinn thinks) parts of the fair.

She tucks a hand into the pocket of her half-apron and stuffs the five dollar bill into the rubber band holding all the other bills.

Quinn finds it a little funny how something that's so obviously rigged still manages to make such a huge profit.

Someone clears their throat, and she looks up. "Sorry. Five dollars per rou...oh. Hello."

Rachel smiles, apparently pleased at the surprise that Quinn can feel on her features, and responds, "Hi."

"What – um," Quinn smiles back, and then stupidly repeats, "Hi," back to her. "Did you want to play?"

Rachel shrugs. "Sure." She pulls a pink duct tape wallet out of her back pocket. "How much?"

"Five dollars," Quinn says. "Or I could just let you play for free. Since you replaced those nachos, and everything."

"It's no big deal," Rachel says, and then drops the bill on the counter before Quinn swaps it with three softballs. Rachel steps back, winds up, and then throws, and Quinn's sure that if this game was far, Rachel would have just won the gigantic frog hanging in the back corner. "I'm still really sorry about your shirt, by the way, and I will most likely continue to be sorry for forever."

"For forever," Quinn repeats, and then resets the bottles. "Again, it's whatever. I have a washing machine."

The ball collides with the bottles with a clang. Rachel huffs slightly in annoyance, and Quinn feels the corner of her mouth tilt up. "I assumed as much. But that stain will be, excuse me,  _hell_ to get out, washing machine or no."

"Do you normally not cuss?" Quinn wonders, stacking the bottles once more. "Because...well. It's New York." She tacks on the, "No offense," just in case.

Rachel snorts softly, "I'm not from here. I thought that was obvious."

"The population of New York is very diverse," Quinn says. "And tourists usually look more...like that." She points over Rachel's shoulder to a family of four in  _I heart NY_  t-shirts.

Rachel throws the ball and misses, then smiles. "I blend in well, then." It's not really a question.

"Yeah."

"Good. That's good. I'm going to school here this year and I've been a bit worried about...fitting in," Her cheeks pinken. "Sorry, that was – you don't care – "

"Where?"

Rachel hesitates for a beat before answering, "Juilliard."

Quinn's eyebrows disappear into her hairline. "That's – wow. Isn't that – wow."

"Thank you."

"Doesn't that school have like, a 10% acceptance rate?"

Rachel shrugs, and then looks down at her feet a bit bashfully before looking up again.

"Modest," Quinn says, thinking out loud. "Um. Sorry. I didn't – "

"No, no, you're fine," Rachel says. "And – ah. What about you? For college?"

Just hearing the word sends an evil shiver down Quinn's spine, and she stutters awkwardly, "Well I – um...uh..."

"Sorry, sorry. I was being a little nosy, wasn't I?"

Quinn shakes her head. "No that wasn't – um. You're fine. Golden, even. It's just...I don't know."

And that's the truth, because when it comes to college and what comes after this summer at the fair, that's exactly her problem; she doesn't know.

"NYU, maybe?" She says, pulling a name out of her ass.

Rachel nods, "That's a nice school," and Quinn's pretty sure that she doesn't want to know whether Rachel really means it or not.

"Yeah. So, um, anyway, are you here by yourself?"

"Oh, no," Rachel laughs. "I'm with my dads. We're staying with a friend."

Quinn can't respond with anything else besides, "Uh..." because her brain is still trying to recover from the plural use of dads.

She's not homophobic or anything, because this is  _New York_ and she has two gay friends (and a bisexual one,), she just  _really_ did not see that coming.

"Dads?" She asks.

"I – yes," Rachel says, and Quinn's response is to shrink a little bit when Rachel tenses her shoulders and stands up just a little bit taller (which isn't much). "Is there a problem with that?"

"No – Jesus, no, of course not. I was just surprised, is all."

"Oh," Rachel relaxes, and so does Quinn. "Sorry. It's habit to get defensive."

"Defend away. I understand."

Rachel smiles, and it seems a little strained, and then pulls a phone from her pocket to check the time. "I'd better head back. I promised I wouldn't be out past 8:30, so..."

Quinn nods. "Right, yeah. Of course."

She watches as Rachel begins backtracking, and then waves when she says, "Bye, Quinn."

And Quinn knows that she probably won't "see her later", but she says it anyway.

...

The people that don't live in New York, usually don't fully realize the truth to the statement  _the city that never sleeps,_ because the street outside of Quinn's window sounds just as busy at 3:30 AM as it would at maybe 3:00 in the afternoon.

It's kind of funny, because that's the only thing that her and her parents (and her sister, when she was still living with them) would agree that they liked; the constant noise of people living their lives and going places and making memories a mere doorway away.

Quinn rubs her bleary eyes, and takes one last look at her Chrome tab that's opened to the search results of  _college_  (That's all she typed, because she worried that if she elaborated on it even the smallest bit, she was running the risk of giving herself a panic attack) and then exits out before closing her laptop and setting it on her nightstand.

She takes comfort in the din of sounds outside her bedroom, because, she figures, there has to be at least one person out there feeling the same weight of nervousness gnawing at her gut.


	2. with your nicotine lips and your heart of stone

"Oh, geez," Quinn says, and smiles slightly as the little girl pouts at the two remaining bottles, crossing her arms. "Better luck next time."

"You cheated," the little girl says, and points a finger at Quinn's face.

And Quinn laughs because technically, the bottles cheated, not her, but she shakes her head. "Nope. I don't cheat. It's just a really hard game." The girl looks unconvinced, and Quinn sighs. "I don't know what you want me to say."

"I want you to admit that you cheated."

"But I – I didn't. Honest. Cross my heart," She makes an 'x' over her chest."And hope to die."

" _Something_  cheated," the girl concludes, and Quinn has started wondering if the pain would be worth it to just bang her head on the counter until the little girl runs away. And then after, maybe she could just continue to bang it on the counter, because there's no way she'd have to go to college if she was brain dead.

Dragging a hand over her face, Quinn says, "Look, do you want me to just...give you a prize?" Reaching blindly behind her, she pulls something fluffy forward. "You can have Mrs. – " she looks down at it " – Giraffe, if you want. She's a lot of fun to...um." What did little girls even  _do,_ nowadays _?_  "Uh, have tea parties with."

Mrs. Giraffe is also very poorly made, as are most prizes in her booth, but the little girl doesn't seem to notice or care because she snatches the giraffe by it's neck and zooms off into the crowd. Quinn sighs, and carelessly places the bottle back at the top of the tower.

"Yo, Q-ball," a voice that's so cheery, yet so relaxed at the same time that it could only belong to Mike says. He taps his knuckles on the counter. "Hi."

"Hey," she replies, addressing Mike and then Brittany, Santana, Kurt, and Sam, who all appear after him. She blinks at all of their lack of uniform (which is really just a bright, red polo shirt with the name of the fair on the chest pocket). "Did I miss some sort of memo?"

"Um, no," Mike furrows his brow. "Why?"

"You guys are all in your street clothes."

"Dude," Sam says, and then tries to show her his watch. "It's 8:30."

"It's – really?" She wonders, and then grabs his wrist – and, sure enough, there's the small hand past the eight and the big hand just past the six.

"Shit," she says.

…

This comes as a surprise to most people, but Quinn  _really_ doesn't like Ferris Wheels.

It's mostly because there's something about being locked into a metal box with people and swung 200 feet in the air that triggers her claustrophobia like  _wow_ , but there's also a small part of her that just subconsciously steers her away from them after reading somewhere about a Ferris Wheel  _collapsing_ and killing/injuring about 20 people.

"Your loss, Q!" Is what she hears Sam yell after her while they get settled in for the thirty-minute wait. (Three-minute wait if someone they know is working the ride.)

She's wandered around the fair more times than she can count, really, but they change the layout and add new things and take older things away nearly every year. It's still as packed as it always is, though, and it's a diverse mix of teenagers, people with graying hair, tourists, families. It makes her feel small, but in the good way, like she's fitting in and belonging. Blending in with the crowd.

The dry smell of cigarette smoke catches her attention and she spots the designated smoking area (which is mostly older women and four or five younger people). There's a wide arch around it that's just empty of anything, as if there's an invisible wall there, and Quinn laughs. She understands, though, she guesses, because for non-smokers it's second-hand smoke central. Hell, for  _smokers,_ it's second-hand smoke central.

Her pocket feels suddenly heavy, and she reaches in to curl her fingers around the carton of Marlboros. She wouldn't really call herself a smoker – none of her coworkers even know that she does, occasionally – so maybe it's something like peer pressure, but her feet carry her across the pavement and over to the people puffing away. She pulls the carton free of her pocket as she walks and then moves to one of the benches before settling in and pulling a cigarette free and pinching the filter between her lips.

She feels a little bit  _cool_ before she feels a lot stupid when she flicks her lighter over and over again before she realizes that it's not going to work.

"Shit," she thinks, and she's actually positive that she said it out loud, too.

She hears someone chuckle and then move over to her before holding a flame out to her.

"Need help?" It's one of the younger people, a guy, and Quinn feels like a novice when she glances at his decorated Zippo.

"Yeah," she says, and then leans it. "Thanks."

"No problemo," he says, and then smiles before he turns and wanders back over to his friend.

Quinn takes small drags, determined not to hack a lung in public, and then blinks her eyes when she realizes that the ground is spinning beneath her slightly and her head feels a lot lighter than it should.

"Shit," she thinks and says again.

"I didn't know you smoked," someone says, and they slide beside her, bumping their shoulders together.

"Oh. Hi," Quinn says, when she turns and then finds herself staring at Rachel. (And she would seriously be tempted to say, "Geez, stalker," if she minded. But she doesn't.)

"Hi," Rachel says. "I didn't know you smoked."

"You don't know  _me_ ," Quinn responds, and then exhales, "I hope this doesn't sound horribly rude, but what are you doing here?"

Rachel smiles. "I don't know. I 'm – I liked it here. Yesterday. So I came back."

Quinn hums. "If I were your fathers, I think I'd be a little offended that you chose to spend your time at a sub-par fair rather than with me. Them. You know what I mean."

"Sub-par? You work here."

"Well, yeah. I know that, obviously. But there're better fairs."

Quinn can practically feel Rachel roll her eyes, and she smiles. "Of course there are. But business looks fine," she says, and then waves her arms, indicating the people milling around (about fifteen feet from) them.

"Tourists flock to anything."

"I'm getting the feeling that you're not very fond of them." Rachel says.

"I'm...kind of not."

"Ouch."

"Oh, um," Quinn says, and then looks at her, apology on the tip of her tongue.

A burning sensations shoots up her hand and she has to physically restrain herself from crying out at the pain.

" _Fuck_ ," is what she spits between her clenched jaw, and Rachel hurriedly bats the ash that used to be the cherry of her cigarette off of Quinn's hand, and then begins fanning it wildly.

"Oh my god, are you okay? I – no, you're not, you're crying, I – Jesus. Is there a nurses building somewhere?" Rachel asks, and Quinn feels the pads of her thumbs brush the tears from her cheek.

Quinn kind of wants to yell  _can you please be quiet it feels like the skin on my hand is fucking burning off_ but instead she says (whines), "It's – ow, fuck – over by the uh, the entrance. I think. I don't know."

Rachel's hand is gripping her upper arm lightly and pulling her up from the bench. Her half-smoked cigarette drops to the ground, but she's too busy blushing from the embarrassment – and trying not to fucking  _scream_ from the pain – that she feels from everybody staring at her, eyes wide and Marlboros burning, to worry about littering, right now.

"Okay, here, come on – we're almost there, I think, it'll be alright," is what Rachel keeps muttering to her while she nearly bites a hole in her lip, and Quinn figures that if Rachel were about two decades older and she were about one younger, they'd be the equivalent of a grandmother taking her grandchild to the nurse to get a band-aid for their "boo-boo".

Except a red spot about the size of a fucking dime is more than just a "boo-boo," and for some reason, associating Rachel with a grandmother – or anything other than just  _Rachel_  – makes Quinn cringe and shake her head (and then cringe some more from the pain).

"There, over there, I'm guessing, because – well, it says  _nurse's station_ , but – shit fuck  _shit_ , it burns." If this were any other time, she'd laugh at her choice of words and then think to herself that Santana's rubbing off on her in a very in-eloquent way.

She barely registers that Rachel has pushed the door open, lead her inside, talked to the nurse, and then pulled her to the bathroom until she hears running water.

"Here," Rachel says, and leads her hand under the faucet. "The nurse said that this would, um, help with the pain and swelling."

They must teach the right things at med school, because the pain is reduced so suddenly that Quinn feels like she could cry in relief.

"Jesus," she sighs, and then takes a deep breath before exhaling slowly. She guesses that it's Rachel's finger that is rubbing small circles on the patch of skin under the splotchy red area of the burn, and her cheeks heat up.

Rachel notices, and stops the movement of her hand before glancing at Quinn worriedly and saying, "Are you alright? You look a little...red."

"No," Quinn says. "I mean, yeah, I'm sure I am red, but it's because this is actually  _really_ embarrassing."

Rachel frowns, "What, that I'm helping you?"

"That, yeah, and the fact that I even need help to begin with. Also the fact that I  _cried_ in front of you."

Rachel shrugs, and then adjusts the temperature of the water a little bit. "That looks really horrible," she says, addressing Quinn's hand, which already feels a lot better. "I probably would have cried, too."

Quinn nods, then winces when Rachel rubs a little too close to her wound.

"Sorry."

"It's fine. What else did the nurse say to do?"

"Um, just this for ten or fifteen minutes and then she'd give you some gauze to wrap it up in."

"Right," Quinn says, and then clears her throat because she's not sure how to say "Thank you," without sounding like she just wants to get it over with or just doesn't sound thankful at all.

Because she is thankful. Not many people would replace a strangers nachos and even less people would help a kind of acquaintance who stupidly let cigarette ashes fall on themselves.

So she says, "Thank you. Not many people would, um, do this," and hopes really hard that Rachel can feel the meaning behind her simple words.

"It's no problem," Rachel says, and smiles, and Quinn smiles back. "I kind of feel like a bad luck charm."

Quinn's brow furrows. "Why?"

"First the nachos, now your hand..."

"I already told you it was no big deal," Quinn says. "And this wasn't your fault; it was just a product of my lack of attentiveness. And stupidity."

Rachel hums, and then shuts the water off but keeps Quinn's hand clutched between hers as she walks back out of the bathroom.

"I think we're ready for the gauze, now," Rachel says at a window, and a few seconds later, a lady with red hair is leading them into a small office.

Her name tag says Emma Pillsbury, and when she reaches for Quinn's hand she says, "Oh, goodness, what's happened here?"

Quinn says, "Um, nothing, really," at the same time that Rachel says, "Her cigarette fell on her hand."

Emma tsks and then gingerly begins wrapping soft gauze around Quinn's hand.

"You're aware of the health risks of smoking, aren't you?" Emma asks, and Quinn feels the corner of her mouth tilt down in annoyance.

"Yes," she says. Of course she does. She wouldn't put something in her body if she wasn't aware of the risks. "But I don't do it that often, anyway, so."

Emma nods, "Of course," and then gives Quinn's hand a pat. "Take some pain killers; Advil, or something. It should be healed in a few weeks, though it'll probably scar."

Scarring is really the last thing on Quinn's mind, because there's still a dull throbbing under the gauze, but she nods.

"Will she be okay?" Rachel wonders. "She won't need, like,  _skin grafts,_ or anything."

"Rachel," Quinn laughs. "It's like, a first-degree burn. I'll be fine."

"Perfectly fine," Emma says.

"See? Perfectly fine," she turns to Emma. "Thank you, by the way. Do I need to, um, pay you, or..."

"No, no. It's fine." She says, and then waves them off.

"You didn't have to do that," Quinn says once they're back outside and walking around, her gauzed hand tucked in her pocket. She sidesteps some kids running by. "Stay with me, I mean. That was probably a waste of – what? Twenty minutes of your life."

Rachel shakes her head. "Hardly. What kind of acquaintance would I be if I left you to fend for yourself?"

Quinn shrugs. "I figured you were just doing it because you though you owed me. Which you don't, by the way. For anything."

"You honestly think the only reason I would help you is to make us "even"?" Rachel asks, and she sounds a little mad and a lot offended.

But Quinn just shrugs and says, "I don't  _know_ you," which wipes the taken aback look off of Rachel's face because...well; she  _doesn't._  They don't know each other because, hell, as Rachel said; she didn't know she smoked (which Quinn will kind of excuse because not even  _Santana_  knows that).

"You're right. Sorry."

"Don't be," Quinn says. "So. What brings you back here, seriously?"

"I told you; I liked it here."

"I like going to the store, but you don't see me there  _everyday_."

"Two consecutive days is hardly everyday," Rachel argues and then laughs. "And...seriously. You like going to the store?"

"I – yeah," she says, suddenly a little shy. "Why? What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing," Rachel says quickly, and then, "Okay, well...it's a little odd."

"Odd? Oh, wow, thanks."

They both laugh, and then fall into a slight silence that's masked by the sounds of hundreds of other conversations and the whirring of rides. Someone screams, "Hey, I'm over here!" A little girl cries, "Daddy, I dropped my ice cream!"

"This looks exciting," Rachel says. "Working here, I mean. Very germ-y though, with all the people, I bet."

Quinn smiles. "It is, sometimes. The exciting part, not the germ-y part, although it's that sometimes, too."

"Do you just work the...bottle-knock-over-thing? Is there a technical name for that?"

"No. Just...bottle-knock-over-thing," she laughs. "And yeah, mostly. I'll cover for Mike if he needs a bathroom break or something, but that's about it."

"What does he do?"

"Uh, he works the lemonade stand. It's actually like, twenty feet away from where we bumped into each other. Fun fact."

Rachel nods, and smiles slightly.

"Um," Quinn starts, because she's really not quite sure how to ask this. "Do you wanna – you like rides, right?"

Rachel blinks. "Yes."

"Okay," Quinn says. "Would it be...horribly weird if I asked you if you wanted to go ride the carousel or something with me?"

Rachel laughs, and it's light and genuine, and Quinn has to bite her lip to keep from smiling at her.

…

"You know when I said 'the carousel or something', I was actually leaning more towards the  _or something._ "

"Hush," Rachel says, pulling Quinn towards the exit of the ride by her uninjured hand. "You had fun."

"Yes," Quinn agrees, pushing through the gate with a red lettered EXIT tied on it after Rachel. "I mean, as much fun as an 18 year old can have riding a unicorn in circles."

Rachel laughs, and then tucks herself against the outside of Quinn's arm as they weave through the people. "There was a little girl making evil eyes at the back of your head – did you see her? I think you stole her unicorn."

Quinn snorts. Rachel smiles and squeezes her hand before letting it go. "So. What else is there to do around here?"

Quinn thinks it's a bit of a dumb question to be asking, considering most rides are tall enough to be seen over all of the tents. But she answers anyway, "Everything and anything you can think of. Well, besides like, life-size tacos, or something. I don't think we have those."

"That might have been the silliest thing I've ever heard."

"I doubt that. I'm sure some guy – well, geez, more than just one guy, probably – has come on to you and said something completely ridiculous like, 'are you a shin? Because I'd like to bang you on my coffee table.'"

Rachel backhands her arm, and Quinn snickers.

…

She wouldn't call herself an adrenaline junkie, not really, but there's just something about roller coasters that makes her feel – excuse the slight cheesiness – so  _alive_. While everyone else is screaming in terror at the top of the hill, she's screaming in joy and throwing her arms into the air, jerking from side to side and wiggling against the safety bar.

"Okay," she says, taking a deep breath as she walks off the ride. "Now  _that_ was amazing." She turns and looks at Rachel.

"I hate you," Rachel says simply, trembling slightly. "I hate you so much. That was just about the worst thing I think I have ever experienced in my life."

"You said 'best' wrong."

Brown eyes glare at hazel sharply, and Quinn laughs. She holds her hand out, anyway. "Come on."

Rachel takes it – but she does it in a way that makes it look like it physically  _pains_  her to do so – and then Quinn leads them away from the  _GutWrencher 2._

…

Everyone else had left a while after she'd wandered off (there were five messages in her cell phone inbox that were all some variation of  _went home, c u 2morrow_ ) so it was just her and Rachel walking towards the front gates, hands in their pockets and sneakers (flip flops, in Rachel's case) scuffing against the pavement as they move.

They stop just outside the entrance and Rachel smiles and says, "That was fun."

"It was." Quinn agrees, and then takes her gauzed hand and gestures to it. "Besides, well, this."

Rachel giggles a little bit, and Quinn smiles.

If she were feeling maybe a little more adventurous and a lot less tired, she'd ask Rachel if she wanted to walk her home (or wherever she's staying), but she doesn't, because she feels like that would be a little bit weird and a lot awkward.


	3. death is cold and death is sure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I rewrote this chapter literally about five times, so...I hope it's alright.

Teacups are literally the only ride that is an equal amount of fun no matter what age you are, and that's pretty much the only reason Quinn didn't object when Kurt suggested it and everyone else agreed. They all manage to squeeze into a green cup, and Quinn is pressed so tightly against Sam's side that she's pretty sure she can smell his detergent.

None of them throw up – although Quinn is sure that everyone wanted to since all six of them were spinning that metal circle in the middle with all their might – and it's mostly because Santana warned, about three seconds before the ride, that "if any of them threw up on her, she would fucking end them." Coming from a girl that was squished between her girlfriend and Kurt in a light green teacup, it doesn't seem like it would be that intimidating, but it stopped her stomach from even thinking about doing anything out of the ordinary.

…

Rachel doesn't show up that day.

Or, maybe she does, and Quinn just doesn't see her, but it's a really new thing for her to expect something to happen that just...doesn't. It makes her swallow something bitter that feels a lot like disappointment.

…

"Hello, dear," is the first thing she hears when she shuts the door behind her and then slips out of her shoes. "Russell, our little carnival worker is home!" Her mom shouts, head angled towards the kitchen. "How was your day?"

"Good," Quinn replies, and then kisses the top of her mom's head from behind the couch before moving around it and flopping down in her dad's rocking chair. "How was yours?"

"Good," Judy says with a smile and nod. "How's your hand?"

"Alright," Quinn says, glancing down at it and turning it over in her lap. "It's been fine. Nothing to worry about."

But Quinn knows that she'll worry about it, anyway, because after she'd told her what happened last night, she'd spent about half an hour chuckling about it with her dad – _"We told you that it causes physical harm, Quinnie," –_ and the rest of the night periodically asking if she was okay and if she thought it was infected and if they should go to the hospital –

It's nice, knowing that her parents would rush her to the emergency room for a first degree burn if she asked. It's so nice that she actually forgets to be a little bit annoyed by it.

Her dad pads into living room clutching a steaming mug of something in one hand and a crumpled tissue in the other. "Come on, Q. I'm sick," he sniffles. "Let me sit in my chair and wallow in my congested misery."

Quinn laughs, but gets up anyway and moves to sit by her mom. "Nice outfit, dad. You look like the poster child for flu season." He looks exceptionally plain in plaid sleep pants and a gray shirt with a coffee stain on the chest. Very dadish.

"It's not even flu-season," her mom points out.

"Right," Quinn says. "Who even gets sick in the summer, anyway? Besides old people with weak immune systems."

"Watch it," her dad warns, but even her mom has to smother a smile. He sighs. "I am getting old, aren't I?"

Quinn wants to say, "You've been "getting old" for years, now," and point to his rapidly graying hair, but she just sticks with a small laugh and a simple, "Yeah," even though she's not sure if he even really wants an answer.

…

When Quinn walks into the living room the next morning, dressed in shorts and her bright red polo, she plops down on the couch. "Morning, dad."

"Morning, sweetie," he says, and if she didn't know he was sick by his constant sniffling, his gravelly voice would be a dead giveaway. There's orange juice on the coffee table in front of him and he's clutching a bowl in his hands while he spoons cereal into his mouth. The weather man is pointing at the forecast on the TV.

"What time do you have to be at work?" He asks, and Quinn pulls her phone out of her pocket and glances at it. "In like...forty-five minutes."

"Geez," he says. "Why are you up so early? Didn't you sleep alright?"

She'd had a dream that she was thirty-two years old and working at Taco Bell because she hadn't gotten into a college, but other than that, "Yeah, fine."

…

For some odd, stupid reason, she was under the impression that taking an Advil would eliminate all and any pain that she would have otherwise felt. This was not the case. All it did do, she figures, is eliminate the headache that she would have felt from clenching her jaw so tightly at the slight throbbing that was still (very) painfully present in her hand.

There's a lull in business today – the fair in general is doing fine, it's just her stand – and she wonders if it has anything to do with the various medical supplies that are currently applied to her hand. She drums her fingers across the counter and winces slightly at the slight irritation it causes.

She runs her good hand through her hair and then makes a face when it comes back sweaty. It's not usually this hot in mid June, but Quinn feels like she's fucking  _suffocating._

And then she has to do a breathing exercise because the word  _suffocating_ and then glancing at the Ferris Wheel in the not-so-far-off distance is making her claustrophobia freak out a little bit.

"Hi," she hears when she's almost finished counting to ten for the second time, and she looks up and smiles. "Hi."

"Long time no see," Rachel says, and Quinn puffs out a laugh.

"Yeah."

"How's your hand?" Rachel wonders, and she looks like she's about to reach out for it but thinks better of it. "It's – no infection, no pain, it's healing properly?"

Two out of three isn't bad, but she has a feeling saying that to Rachel will make her rush her back to Emma the nurse and demand for her hand to be looked at again.

So instead she smiles and says, "Yes. Fine."

"Good. Excellent, even."

She nods, and Rachel's next question is thrown at her in such a flash that she has to pause for a moment and let herself process it.

"What time do you get off?" She watches Rachel pinken. "That was – "

"8:30."

Rachel looks at her gratefully for a second, and she smiles at her before pulling out her phone. "But that's not for another hour and a half, and I'd hate to make you just stand there – "

"I honestly don't mind," Rachel says, brightly. "It would be fine."

The rules are pretty simple; don't give your friends free anything and don't abandon your post. And since this is disobeying neither one of them, Quinn says, with a shrug, "You could help with the stand. If you wanted."

Rachel slides across the counter and Quinn laughs a little bit when she almost falls.

…

Quinn wonders for a moment if her boss would kill her for this.

Business picks up considerably, and Quinn feels like it might be because Rachel's smile seems like it has a fucking  _gravitational_ pull to it, because old people and little kids and teenagers trying to win their girlfriends something just keep showing up and playing (and losing).

Quinn's content to just sit back and line up the softballs and re-stack the bottles and smile slightly at the occasional sore loser.

…

It seems like 8:30 can't come soon enough, but Rachel insists on letting all the people that seem interested have a chance, so they end up leaving somewhere closer to 9:00.

"I'm going to assume – and correct me if I'm wrong, please – but I'm going to assume you haven't had dinner yet."

"No," Quinn says, smiling over at her. "And I'm going to assume that you haven't, either, since you're asking."

"You assume correct," Rachel laughs.

"Is this your way of implying that I should...get dinner with you?" Quinn wonders, and she her lips tilt up when Rachel shrugs.

"Something like that."

…

Rachel pulls her to a hole-in-the-wall diner that's literally like, two blocks away from the fair.

It's a nice place, though. It's retro, like a more authentic version of a Rosie's Diner, and Quinn notices the jukebox in the corner with a smile.

There's a sign that says  _seat yourselves_ near the entrance, and Quinn follows as Rachel leads them to a booth.

The cover on the seat crinkles as Quinn slides in across from Rachel. "Have you been here before?"

Rachel shrugs, and then plucks two menus from behind the small cage containing various condiments before handing Quinn one. "My daddy likes their milkshakes."

She nods, and then looks over the menu. "Are their burgers any good?"

Rachel laughs. "I wouldn't know."

"You've never had one here?" Quinn raises an eyebrow.

Rachel shakes her head. "I'm vegan."

"Oh," she says. "That's – you don't eat animal products, right?"

Rachel nods, and then smiles when a waitress approaches their table.

"Can I get ya'll something to drink?" She pulls out a notepad and clicks her pen.

"Water's fine, thank you."

"For you, honey?" The waitress – Tasha, it says on her name tag – asks.

"I – water's good for me, too," Quinn responds, and then Tasha says, "I'll give you a little more time to look over the menu," before she disappears to the back.

"How long have you been vegan?" Quinn wonders, trying to make light conversation.

"I stumbled upon a video on YouTube when I was about seven," Rachel says, folding her menu closed and tucking it away. "And...the rest is history."

Quinn hums, and then looks over the menu and frowns before looking up at Rachel. "Most of these things aren't vegan friendly."

Rachel shrugs. "Most things aren't. I'm used to it."

"What are you getting?"

"That house salad sounded nice," Rachel responds.

"Oh."

…

"What colleges did you apply to?" Rachel wonders, taking a bite of her salad.

It's a simple question, really, but for some reason it makes Quinn wild with panic and uncertainty. She squeezes some ketchup on over her fries with a shaky hand.

"I – none," she says, a small crack in her voice, and she clears her throat and repeats.

Rachel looks at her with wide eyes and eyebrows to her hairline and Quinn utters a, "What?" in a nervous chuckle.

"You haven't applied anywhere?" Rachel hisses, unnecessarily because the restaurant is empty besides them and a couple sharing a milkshake about four booths down from them.

"No?" Quinn says, partly a little bit ashamed and embarrassed but mostly confused. "I told you that."

"You said NYU, who's fall applications close in January. So I just assumed – "

"Really?" Quinn says, and she's pretty sure the  _oh my god what the fuck do I do now_ is evident in her voice.

Granted, NYU wasn't one of her schools of choice, really; she'd just pulled the first college off the top of her head so she wouldn't seem like she was completely unprepared.

Which seems useless, now, because she's just realized she actually  _is_ completely unprepared _._

"I don't – Jesus. What'd you think I meant?"

"That you had already applied and were just deciding on which acceptance letter to go with!"

"Oh." She says.

Haha. No.

"What – my god, do you even know what you're going to college  _for_?"

"No."

Rachel looks like she could slap her.

"Not really," she amends, and the crazy look on Rachel's face lessens. "Something with art."

"Something with art," Rachel repeats, shaking her head and picking at her lettuce. "Do you know how many  _somethings with art_  there are?"

"Painting. That something." Quinn says, and then drags a fry through ketchup. "I'm – I haven't really though about it."

"That's obvious," Rachel says, and Quinn feels a small surge of annoyance and...something else, that feels suspiciously like inferiority.

"Okay, I – well, it's obvious you don't really want to associate with people that have little to no plans for their future, so – "

Rachel has the deceny to look a little bit ashamed. "Quinn, that's not what I – "

"Okay," Quinn says, standing up and pulling a twenty out of her pocket. "Tell the waitress to keep the change. Or you keep the change, it doesn't really matter." She drops the bill next to her half eaten hamburger.

"Quinn, please – "

"I'll see you around," she says, and for some reason, that shuts Rachel up, and Quinn continues her journey to the door in silence, trying to ignore the stares of Tasha and the couple in the corner, who's jaws are hung slightly open around their straws.

...

Her parents try to ask her how her evening went, and she gives them short a short, "Fine," before walking to her room and closing her door roughly.

She thinks about how stupid it is to let someone she's known for three days get to her like that.

And then she thinks,  _truth hurts._


	4. let's get wasted it's all we ever do

It's really not normally like her to take out her anger on other people, but she figures, what the fuck ever, Santana can handle it.

"Remind me again," Quinn says around the box in her arms. "Why I'm helping you?"

"Because even though you're acting like a raging  _bitch_ right now, you love me, deep down, and you'll help me, panties in a twist or not." Santana kicks open the back door of the concession stand. "Watch your step, and then just set it over there."

Quinn does, still stumbling over the step, anyway, and then feels like slapping Santana over the head when she sees Joe running frantically from the order window, to the preparation counter and back again.

"Joe, I got more chips and hot dogs – "

"Thank god," he says, and turns around, rubbing sweat off of his forehead. "Here, one of you take over for a second, I've really gotta pee."

Somehow, Quinn is the one that gets pushed towards the window, and for a second time she feels like slapping Santana over the head because she promised her that she'd only be away from her stand for fifteen minutes, twenty at the most.

"Put a smile on, Q," Santana says, ducking to rip the tape off one of the boxes. "It's all about customer satisfaction."

Quinn mutters something like, "fuck you," and then ducks down the see out the window.

"How may I...really?" She puffs out in a disbelieving laugh. "Are you f – really?"

"Is that the proper way to treat a customer?" Rachel says, and despite the pure fucking attitude coating her words, Quinn feels some of her anger slide away at the realization that Rachel's  _here._

"Sorry; how may I help you?" She says. "Our daily special is what the fuck are you doing here, would you like to try it?"

"Quinn, jesus christ," she hears Santana say, but she ignores her.

She also sees the slightly offended look on the face of the older man behind Rachel, but she ignores that, too.

And if it phases Rachel at all, she doesn't show it, because she says, straight-faced, "Nachos."

Quinn lets out a little laugh despite herself, and then says, "I thought you were vegan?"

"Who says they're for me?"

She doesn't have an answer for that, because Rachel has a point, but instead of admitting that, she bites the inside of her cheek, and then mumbles, "One moment."

"What the hell did I just say about customer satisfaction?" Santana says, but Quinn ignores her and grabs a bag of chips out of the box that she's going through. "Because if you talked to me like that, I sure as fuck wouldn't be satisfied."

Quinn is about to say, "Shut up," but then a voice sounds outside of the window, "And I'd also like to talk to you for a few minutes, if that's possible."

"I'm busy," she says. She doesn't hear anything back, and is about to repeat herself while Santana instructs her on how to pour cheese over the chips, but then she hears, "I'll wait."

"You know – here," she says, shoving the food out the window and into Rachel's hands, and the older man that was behind Rachel scoffs and then walks out of line with a pointed look in her direction –

God, she  _really_ doesn't care.

Quinn, idiotically, doesn't think Rachel is actually serious, but about six customers later, Rachel is still there, leaning against the outside of the stand, nachos perched carefully on her palm.

Joe comes back, and he gives Quinn a grateful smile before running a hand through his hair and scooting her over to take his place back at the window. She ignores Santana's "where the fuck are you going?" and then steps out of the stand.

Joe says something like, "Sorry about that, folks," and it would rub Quinn a little bit the wrong way if she wasn't focused on something else entirely, right now.

The first thing Rachel says when she rounds the corner is, "I don't want to fight," and Quinn almost laughs because, really, she doesn't want to fight, either; she just wants her to  _leave_.

"You don't look happy to see me," Rachel says after a second, and Quinn traps her bottom lip between her teeth, hard.

"You should leave," she says, and it sounds way more bitchy than she actually feels and Rachel's face drops for about half a second before she recovers.

"Why?"

"Because, I – " Quinn sighs and then brushes a hand through her hair, feeling some more of her anger drop away because, really, Rachel didn't  _do_  anything to her, besides tell her things that she  _really_ didn't want to hear. "I don't know. You just should."

"Do you not want me here?" Rachel asks, and Quinn knows that telling the truth is just a little more mean than she's capable of, no matter what kind of slight irritation she has left.

"Not – okay. Never mind.  _Stay,_ if that's what you really want."

"But don't come by your stand?" she says, with a slight smile on her face, and –

Well, fuck. If it's a guilt trip, it's working.

Quinn almost says something stupid like, "That's not what I meant," but it kind of is, so she just shoves her hands in her pockets and shrugs and Rachel moves the nachos from one hand to the other.

…

If there were a way to go back in time, Quinn's pretty sure that she would go back to that afternoon and replace "that's not what I meant," with "yes, exactly," because when Rachel walks over – hesitantly, Quinn notices – Quinn just kind of wishes she had the ability to disappear.

"I thought – my god, you're even the one who said – "

"I know," Rachel cuts in, and then, "But I – I couldn't just leave us like that, that would have been – "

Quinn is momentarily stunned by the  _us_  but she recovers and then laughs and then says, "You could have. Easily. We've spent about a total of five hours together. It's not – it would have been painless."

"I – would it have, really?"

Quinn heaves a deep sigh. "Yes."

Which is true, because, my god, she can fucking  _feel_ her impending failure while Rachel just exudes success and happiness.

She'd say fuck her, but she wouldn't mean it.

"Because we don't know each other, right?" Rachel says.

"Exactly – "

"I want to know you. As... _creepy_ as that may sound."

She finds herself saying, "That's not – it's not creepy."

Rachel smiles up at her a little bit, and Quinn pretends like she didn't see it, but then Rachel is asking, "Do you like coffee?"

Quinn hesitates a second before saying, "Yeah. Why?"

"I was wondering," Rachel says, her fingers tapping lightly on the edge of the counter, "if you would – we could have a redo, if you'd like. Of yesterday."

"I –" Quinn pauses for a second, halfway out of her polo, before she says, "Okay."

"Okay?"

Quinn nods, and then climbs over to the other side. "Yeah. Okay."

...

For some reason, the first thing that comes out of Quinn's mouth when they step into Starbucks is, "I'll pay."

Maybe it's guilt, because she figures it most likely is, but then Rachel blinks up at her and says, "You paid yesterday."

"I know," Quinn says, and then blows out a puff of air. "But I - I feel bad. About last night."

"You shouldn't. It was my fa –"

"I  _know_ ," she says, and then winces. "Sorry, that was...mean. But I sort of – I overreacted. This can be my apology."

Quinn wonders if Rachel thinks she's crazy for thinking that a cup of coffee would be incentive enough for Rachel to forgive and forget but -

She's not good with apologies and words; caffeinated beverages will just have to fucking  _do_.

"Hey, uh – welcome to Starbucks. What can I get you guys?"

Quinn looks up – no, literally,  _looks up_  – at the cashier and he shoots her a lopsided smile. "Um – just a tall coffee, is fine."

He nods, "Awesome," and then when Rachel orders, Quinn hands him a five dollar bill.

Quinn pays, and then Rachel says, "Thank you...Finn," (after glancing at his name tag) before they make their way to a small two person table near the back.

"You didn't have to pay," Rachel says.

Quinn shrugs before glancing out of the window. "I know. But um, like I said, consider it sort of an apology for yesterday. Last night. Whatever."

"And like I said, you don't have to apologize."

She lifts her shoulders in a shrug and takes a drink of her coffee. "I wanted to."

"Did you?" Rachel lets out a little laugh. "It didn't seem like you did earlier."

"I didn't," Quinn admits. "But – I don't know. The guilt finally hit me, I guess." Except, she figures the guilt hit her a long time ago; she just had to get over the hurt to actually feel it.

"Well, I didn't want you to buy it because you felt  _guilty_ ; I wanted you to buy it because you wanted to buy it."

"I – well, it was both," she says, and gestures towards Rachel's cup with a small laugh before saying, "Just...drink your coffee."

"Okay," Rachel says quietly before taking a sip. "I know – you probably don't want to talk about it, but – have you really not applied anywhere yet?"

"You were right," Quinn says, clenching her jaw slightly. "I don't want to talk about it."

Rachel is silent for a beat after that, but then she says, "I'm sorry," and Quinn watches her finger the sleeve on her cup for a second before she sighs, "It's...whatever. Bad subject."

"Okay," Rachel says. "But I don't really – I don't know what to talk about."

"We can talk about how the cashier boy is staring at you right now."

Rachel says, and then turns to glance at the register quickly. "I – was he really, though?"

Quinn nods, then sips, then leans back slightly in her chair. "Yeah. Bad." She raises an eyebrow when he looks back over again. "And...I think he wrote you something on your cup," she says when she catches a peek of a lot more marker than there should be under Rachel's hand.

"It's – oh," Rachel says, and Quinn watches as Rachel blushes slightly and then says, "That's – well. Points for straightforwardness, I guess."

"What does it say?"

"Just – here." Quinn reaches for the cup when Rachel slides it across the table and she reads  _to the prettiest girl i've seen all day._

"He's coming over," Quinn notes, slightly amused and mostly astonished, and Rachel swivels around in her chair just in time to catch him stumbling nervously to the table.

"Hi," he says, a bit breathlessly, staring down at Rachel, and Rachel blinks at him for a second before she returns the greeting. "Hi. Um, was there something you needed?"

"Oh. Oh, right, sorry, um – how is everything?"

Quinn damn near snorts into her cup, but she contains herself enough to say, "It's good. Great." at about the same time that Rachel says, "Amazing, thank you."

He nods, and then fidgets with his apron for a second before he says, "I – uh, I'm guessing you probably – you read your cup already."

"I did," Rachel nods, and Quinn watches her swallow and tuck a piece of hair behind her ear.

He nods, and then wrings his hands together and then starts, "Look, that was – I'm sorry if that was really...creepy, or whatever, but I mean – well, you are the prettiest girl I've seen all day – throughout all the days I've worked here, actually, but...um..."

Quinn would really like to be offended that he's not even paying one ounce of attention to her, but she's too busy being suddenly a bit bothered by his large frame hovering over their table to care.

"It's fine, really, um," Rachel glances at his name tag, "Finn. It was sweet. And, I'm flattered. Really."

"Cool," Finn says, and then glances back at the counter. "I've got to get back to the register but, um. Maybe I'll see you around...?"

"Rachel," she says. "It's – I'm Rachel."

Finn nods, and smiles. "Rachel. Okay. Got it."

"That was..." she starts, watching him as he retreats back to the register, and she never does finish, but Rachel nods in assent, anyway.


End file.
